Review: One Piece Chapter 767

Cora and Doflamingo

Full spoilers follow.

Well, we knew it was coming. From Law's fight with Doflamingo earlier in the arc, we knew that Corazon would meet his fate at the hands of his own brother. Still, despite knowing it was coming, Oda handled Cora's death excellently, showing once again that he is the master of tragic backstories.

Cora's plan of hiding Law in a treasure chest was very smart, yet also very simple. Although it kind of depended on Law's self-control. I was half-afraid that Law would ruin everything by running out to try to save Corazon, or at least try to see him one last time. Not that I would have blamed him. Still, the fact that he had so much self-control at such a young age says a lot about him.

And once again Corazon showed just how useful his ability is. Oda really knows how to utilize powers in One Piece for maximum effect. Though I guess I shouldn't be surprised after he made Blueno's Door-Door ability incredibly useful.

It's also worth noting that Doflamingo stated he was reluctant to kill his father, and his brother. It shows that despite the Warlord's absolutely malicious personality, he does care on some level about his family. Of course, this was evident earlier in the arc when he stated that his Officers were family to him.

This didn't keep him from doing the deed, though. The flashback in the flashback at the chapter's beginning showed the circumstances behind Doflamingo's patricide, which was appropriately brutal. It says a lot about Doflamingo's father that he smiled and apologized to his son even as he was about to be gunned down. Still, I don't think his father had anything to apologize for. He wanted to live among the people, and lessen the gap between the Celestial Dragons and the general populace. It wasn't his fault that the people essentially lynched his family. The complexity of the whole situation really shows just how cruel the world can be.

It's also interesting to note that Vergo has been with Doflamingo since he was a child, as was Trebol. If anything, I expected Pica or Diamante to have been with him longer. It also has to do with Vergo's position in the Family. Since he always operates separately from them, and he was introduced in the Punk Hazard arc before the Don Quixote Family was established, I've never really associated him with the rest of them. But perhaps, since he was with Doflamingo so long, that is why he was trusted to infiltrate the Navy.

The moment leading up to Corazon's death was great, and Cora knocking his head against the chest so that Law knew that he was talking to him was a nice touch. And the fact that Cora forced himself to stay alive so that Law's sound buffer would stay in place was incredibly touching. The snow that slowly covered his body was also a beautiful effect on Oda's part.

And I realize that the Don Quixote Family was under attack by Tsuru's Marines, but it seemed odd that none of them noticed Law walking away from the pile of treasure. Most of the characters in the series are so ridiculously powerful and smart, that I'm surprised when they don't notice things like that. I guess it's worth keeping in mind that powerful characters aren't omniscient. However, the final panel, showing Law's cries drowned out by the explosions of Tsuru's cannon fire was great.

It was also touching how the chapter showed that Sengoku took in Corazon after Doflamingo killed their father. It says a lot about a character we really haven't seen in a few years.

Did you notice that this was
X Drake?

One of the most understated elements in this chapter was the character Drie. I'll be honest, I had no idea who he was as I read the chapter. Obviously he was important, and I wondered what the significance of him being taken in by the Navy was. It wasn't until I went on the One Piece Wiki that I found out that apparently Drie is X Drake. I didn't even notice the "x" shaped scar on his chin. So now we know that Drake and Law, two of the Eleven Supernovas, came close to crossing paths in the past.

I really don't know where this Jimbei cover story is going. These cover stories seem to range from entirely unimportant (Gedatsu) to foreshadowing of future events (Buggy). Considering Jimbei's importance, I'm willing to bet that something important will happen.

I'm curious if this will be the last chapter in Law's flashback, or if perhaps we'll get one more showing his life between Cora's death and him becoming Captain of the Heart Pirates. Either way, the Dressrosa arc still has a lot of life left in it.

Review: Takujo no Ageha: The Table Tennis of Ageha, Chapter 1

Table Tennis Is Cool

Ageha Hanazono and Ririka Otsuka, the
main characters of Takujo no Ageha: The
Table Tennis of Ageha.

Full spoilers follow.

I have to admit, I'm not a sports guy. I hold nothing against sports, or people who enjoy them. I see the appeal, but they aren't for me. And I'm glad when I see other people enjoying them.

So when I saw that the next Jump Start manga in Weekly Shonen Jump was going to be about table tennis, I have to say, my hopes weren't high.

Despite my disinterest in sports manga, however, I thoroughly enjoyed Weekly Shonen Jump's first sports manga, Cross Manage. And even Sporting Salt, from the first Jump Start round, had its moments.

From that precedent, I figured Takujo had a 50/50 chance of being good or bad.

The series opens with the titular character, Ageha Hanazono, being offered to join a professional table tennis team in Germany. Ageha, however, has his sights set on returning to Japan so that he can learn from his old master.

The entire time he speaks, he bounces a Ping-Pong ball on a paddle. As far as manga/anime mannerisms go, this is one of those that is somewhat plausible for a person to actually do. As crappy as I am when it comes to Ping-Pong, I actually kind of wanted to grab a Ping-Pong paddle and try this myself. Ageha continues to do this for the rest of the first chapter. It's actually quite funny, visually, that he continues to do this while carrying on a variety of conversations. I couldn't help thinking about how in real life, how loud and annoying this would be to bystanders. An endless cacophony of tok tok tok. The more I thought about this, the funnier it got.

And that's what this opening scene really establishes. There's plenty of genuine table tennis play, but Takujo succeeds in its first chapter mostly as a comedy. Maybe I'm too easily amused, but I had plenty of moments where this manga made me guffaw. For instance, the opening scene has the recruiter try one last tactic to get Ageha to stay. He offers to assign one "Busty Betty" as Ageha's fitness coach, and shows an extremely lewd photo of the woman in her underwear, with a Ping-Pong ball and paddle placed in strategically perverted places. Ageha defiantly states that "Mere breasts are not enough to sway my resolve!" while simultaneously breaking out into a nosebleed, indicating that he is more perverted than his appearance and actions may suggest.

This also brings up another topic that's often important for anime and manga: fanservice. I usually think of fanservice as a difficult thing to balance in a series. Too much, and it becomes too perverted for me to take seriously. However, if a balance is struck, it can be an effective vehicle for tremendous comedy. The scene of "Busty Betty," while fairly...much, still manages to get across a hilarious scene.

The other big character introduced is Ririka Otsuka, a second year high school student who considers herself to be "a beautiful girl far removed from mundane things." She is a girl obsessed with her own beauty and popularity. A literal mob of boys follow her to school, begging Ririka to go out with them.

She is so used to this, that when she runs into Ageha on the street (still bouncing his Ping-Pong ball), who is completely uninfatuated with her, that Ririka is knocked fully off-kilter. This also firmly establishes just how dedicated Ageha is to table tennis.

"I'm already in a committed relationship with table tennis. Therefore I do not intend to engage in an illicit sexual relationship with you."

This launches us into just how obsessed Ageha and Ririka are with their respective passions; table tennis and herself, respectively. Their personalities are so dominated by these things, that it may be a problem to take them seriously if you try to view the series through too serious of a lens. But because it's a comedy, these extreme personalities are permissible, and often succeed. Ageha's obsession with table tennis lends itself well to comedy, especially when he presents Ririka with a love letter that's simply his table tennis training schedule.

Ririka's obsession, however, tends to help her character less. She is so caught off guard by Ageha's rejection that she sets off an a crusade to get Ageha to admit that he is attracted to her. While this is often played for comedic effect, in the slightly more serious moments it makes her seem to be a purely vain, superficial character. The fact that she is so desperate for every single boy's attention would be borderline pathetic in a more serious series. She's like the typical popular high school girl in any movie from the eighties, to the extreme.

One of Ageha's many nosebleeds.

So desperate is she for Ageha to admit that he is attracted to her, she literally pulls off her shirt in the middle of class and says "You know...I could teach you more fun things to play than table tennis." Like I said above, fanservice can lead to great comedy, and in this case it causes Ageha to break out into another nosebleed while proclaiming once again that table tennis is his only love.

This nosebleed joke is genuinely funny, but it may become overplayed if it's used too much in the future. However, the third time it's used tries to mix it up a little by having Ageha adhere chap stick, so maybe there's more life in the joke than I'm giving it credit for.

But the other side of Ririka's fanservice is what it means for her character. She need every guy to like her so much that she's willing to strip in class to change a guy's mind? Perhaps I'm being overly analytical of this aspect of her character, but this seems to be overly much.

Eventually, I guess I'm going to have to talk about table tennis. It's established during Ririka's introduction that she lives in a table tennis center, run by her grandfather. However, Ririka intensely dislikes table tennis, and considers it to be beneath her. The way that Itsuki Furuya establishes this is weird, to say the least. Ririka's grandfather offers to take a bath with her. Ririka laughs and playfully calls him a pervert. Then her grandfather laughs and says that Ririka should take over the family's table tennis center. She gives him the look of death and tells him "Over my dead body."

In a way, this is funny, but why is it that creepy familial sexual stuff seems so commonplace in anime and manga? I realize this is hardly new, but still.

Eventually, the Ageha/Ririka conflict is settled when Miyaji, a large thug who's one of Ririka's admirers, tells Ageha that he won't be allowed to play table tennis in school because it isn't cool. Miyaji used to be the captain of the school's table tennis team, but he disbanded it because it was uncool, and so Ririka would like him. This leads to a table tennis match between Ageha and Miyaji to settle things.

Considering that Miyaji stopped playing table tennis because it was uncool, and Ririka hates it as well, it seems odd that they would agree to settle things with a match of it. You could argue that they want to crush Ageha at what he's passionate about, but the manga never really explains the complete reasoning.

Ageha and Miyaji's table tennis match.

The table tennis match itself was actually quite visually well done, and interesting. Ageha is able to overcome Miyaji's quick reflexes by predicting where he will hit the Ping-Pong ball. This leads to Miyaji pulling out his personal Ping-Pong paddle, which is covered with speed glue, a substance illegal in official matches which makes the balls he strike go considerably faster. Again, if Miyaji quit playing table tennis, it's odd that he would keep his own paddle around. Perhaps it signifies that, on some level, Miyaji resented giving up table tennis. If that was the case, though, the chapter didn't address it at all.

The game ends with Ageha's victory, and the chapter ends with Ririka at home, having expressed an interest in table tennis to her grandfather. It was also revealed earlier that her grandfather was the master that Ageha had returned to Japan to see. This leads to Ageha and Ririka living under the same roof, which leads to a humorous (if typical in anime/manga) encounter in the bathroom, leaving Ageha on the floor with a bloody nose and Ririka embarrassed.

It's then that Ririka's grandfather reveals that Ageha is Ririka's fiancé. Which is...odd. I mean, why is Ririka's grandfather setting up her marriage? To my knowledge, arranged marriages aren't common in Japan, and it seems odd that a family with a table tennis legacy of all things would practice it. It just seems unnecessary, and a way to force Ririka and Ageha to become a couple. It would be better, if they did become a couple, for them to become one naturally without an arranged marriage hanging over their head. I don't know. It just seems unnecessary.

All in all, I enjoyed Takujo no Ageha much more than I thought I would. It's a solid comedy series, with more than enough actual table tennis for those interested in the sport. I can see myself reading this series weekly just for the laughs. And if they can sort out Ririka's character and make her more balanced, then I think the series would be much better off.

As for artwork, Furuya does an excellent job. The action scenes during the table tennis match are suitably action-packed, and the comedy scenes are well-drawn. Characters, however, are a bit hit or miss. Ririka's beauty is sold by her artwork, and her friend is also well-drawn. Ageha is also well-done, though I kept thinking that he looked like Yukio Okumura from Blue Exorcist. Miyaji is also passable, even though he looks like a typical school punk.

Pros:

Seriously funny stuff.

Ageha is hilarious.

Entertaining table tennis for those interested in the sport.

Artwork is good.

Cons:

May not be for everyone, especially those apathetic about sports.

Ririka is too obsessive over her own popularity with boys.

Creepy grandpa bathing joke.

Possibly too much fanservice, though it won't ruin it for you if you dislike it.

Ageha looks like Yukio Okumura, and Miyaji could be a thug in any series.

If table tennis is so uncool, why did they decide to play it?

The arranged marriage.

Bonus: The best out-of-context line in the chapter.

"Did Miyaji's balls just gain power?!"